


The Hero's Journey

by keep_waking_up



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Jungian Archetypes, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Weirdly like 9x01 but i wrote it first
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-23
Updated: 2013-10-23
Packaged: 2017-12-30 07:05:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1015613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keep_waking_up/pseuds/keep_waking_up
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Sam’s wall breaks, Dean ventures into his mind, to try to bring him back before it’s too late.  There, he encounters seven different archetypes that completely shift Dean’s view of his brother… and himself.	He didn’t expect to see Bobby.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Hero's Journey

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Sam/Dean MiniBang over at Samdean-otp at LJ. Amber1960 did the art for this, which is not present here, but can be found at my LJ.

Dean blinked several times, but Bobby didn’t disappear. He stayed right where he was, seated at his old desk, flipping through an even older book. There was a bottle of scotch at his right and an empty glass at his left. It was such a normal sight, but so out of place here.

Dean glanced around, but the rest of their surroundings were dull. Dirt, dead grass, and a long strip of highway, interrupted by Bobby’s desk in the middle of it. Behind him and to the sides of the road, there was nothing, just swirling grey fog.

“Bobby?” he called softly, and the man sighed, tucking a piece of paper into the book’s pages and then slamming it shut.

He looked up at Dean grumpily and then waved him over. “Well, come on. Sit down. Times a’wasting. I ain’t got all day.”

“I’m not sure how time really works here,” Dean said, but he sat in the chair across the desk from Bobby and waited.

The man leaned back, arms crossed over his chest. “You remember why you’re here?”

Already, the memories were getting fuzzy. Dean shook his head. Bobby, the real Bobby, had warned him about this. He had to keep things straight. “Sam’s wall,” he said, and just saying it made everything clearer. “Cas broke the wall in Sam’s mind. Sam collapsed.” Those were memories he didn’t want to think about, Sam dead to the world, probably in awful pain. He glanced around. “I expected there to be more hell in here.”

“There’s hell enough,” Bobby said, voice stern, “You don’t need to go looking for it. Hell’s more than fire and hooks and blood. You know that.”

And Dean did. He clenched his fists. “You—Bobby said I had to come in here and see if I could fix things. That Sam wouldn’t be strong enough himself, probably. He gave me something, a drink, to get me here.” He remembered the desperation in Bobby’s voice, the urgency. “I have to do it fast. Cas—”

Bobby snarled and poured the glass full of scotch before downing it. “You start worrying about what’s out there and you’ll never fix your brother. Your focus needs to be here, you understand me?”

“Yes sir,” Dean replied and watched the amber liquid sloshing in the bottle. “But I don’t understand. Why are you in here?”

The man snorted. “You think I ain’t important enough to be floating around in Sam’s head?” He propped one boot up on the desk, then the other. “We got all sorts up in here. All of us pieces of Sam. Pieces you need to put together.” He stared at Dean contemplatively, then leaned forward. “Sam’s got a neat sort of brain, even all broken apart. He organizes, compartmentalizes. It’s your job to put Humpty Dumpty together again.”

“Organized? How?” He shouldn’t have expected anything different. Sam listed his files alphabetically on his computer. Even his duffel was in a constant state of order. “Are you trying to tell me—”

“There’s a trick to it.” Bobby toasted him, and Dean hadn’t even seen him fill the glass again. “Sam talked to you about it once. Back when he was in school. You remember it. Archetypes.”

“Archetypes,” Dean repeated.

“Archetypes,” Sam said, bangs overgrown and flopping in his face as he hovered over his English homework. They were in Massachusetts, at some liberal arts school that advocated teaching the classics. Sam was into it. Dean preferred homework he could find the answers to easily online. “Carl Jung. He didn’t come up with them, but he was pretty obsessed with them. Thought all mental issues stemmed back to these archetypes we all have in our brains. We all have them because of this thing called the collective unconscious—”

“Do I look like I care?” Dean said lazily. He was flipping through Hamlet, not bothering to read, just doing something with his hands. It wasn’t worth attempting to read the thing when he’d gotten the Cliff notes much more easily. “Besides, that’s all psychology, so I don’t get what that has to do with English.”

“Dean,” Sam sighed, but then continued, almost resigned this time. “Look, because all these archetypes are in our collective unconscious, they show up all the time in literature. Books play on these archetypes. The most popular books are the ones that use these archetypes to their best advantage.”

That was interesting. “So, there’s like… a basic formula to books.”

Sam perked up, realizing he’d finally caught Dean’s attention. “Yeah, there are tons. Like the Hero’s Journey. Look at Hercules, at Odysseus. They all have to undergo a hero’s trials in order to eventually reach the end of their quest—”

“I don’t get what that has to do with Hamlet.” Dean threw the book down on the table and scratched at his stomach. “Dude didn’t do anything but whine and plot and basically be paranoid.”

Sam looked at him, unimpressed. “Cliff Notes. Really.” When Dean just shrugged and smirked, Sam scowled. “I didn’t say the Hero’s Journey applied to Hamlet. And I’m not going to do your homework for you.”

“It’s not like I really care about it anyway,” Dean grumbled, even though the principal had threatened to expel him if he didn’t get his grades up. 

Taking pity on him, Sam scrawled something down on a sheet of paper and then handed it over. It had seven names on it. The Father, the Mother, the Child, the Hero, the Sage, the Maiden, and the Trickster. “What the fuck are these?” Dean asked.

“Archetypes,” Sam said. “Seven of Jung’s major archetypes. These are always repeating, over and over again throughout literature. They each represent different things. You can probably figure them out yourself. They’re in your collective unconscious as well.”

Dean stared down at the words. “I don’t know, Sam, I’m not some fucking smart geek like you.”

“You don’t need to be smart.” Sam scooted over to sit at his side, his warm skin brushing up against Dean’s. “Just be open to it. When you think of the Sage, what do you think of?”

“I don’t know!” Dean rubbed a hand against his face and sighed. “Knowledge, I guess. Wisdom.”

“Exactly!” Sam beamed up at him, dimples flashing. “He’s like Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars. Or Yoda. Gandalf in Lord of the Rings—”

“So, basically old dudes,” Dean summarized and Sam smacked his arm. 

“The Sage can be female as well.” Sam paused, then grudgingly added, “But yeah, normally an old man.”

For a second, Dean felt a bit proud of himself for figuring it out. And then he groaned. “But there’s no Sage in Hamlet!”

Sam laughed and stood, moving back to his own work. “And why don’t you think about why that might be?”

Later that night, Dean wrote a paper in which he said the lack of a Sage archetype in Hamlet was instrumental to Hamlet’s descent into madness. He got an A. Of course, that didn’t really matter in the long run, since he dropped out of high school the next month. But it was worth it, if only to see Sam’s smile.

He hadn’t thought about archetypes since that night. Blinking, he stared at Bobby. “The Sage,” he said. “Sam really cast you as the Sage?”

Laughing, Bobby stretched his hands over his head. “How many other wise old men do the two of you know?”

“I don’t know if I’d count you as wise,” Dean muttered, then cursed as Bobby hit him over the head.

“We don’t have time for you mouthing off either, idjit. I know a hell of a lot more than you do, so it’s about time you start paying attention.”

Right. Sam’s Wall. His mind in pieces. Archetypes. Dean tried to put the puzzle together. “So, in order to fix Sam, I have to... what? Deal with every single archetype in his mind?”

“Not every one,” Bobby corrected. “Just the big seven. And then you’ve got to deal with the Ego, which…” He trailed off, face grim. “It’s not going to be easy. Each archetype is a part of Sam’s Shadow, the things he’s afraid of, the darkness inside him. You have to face them in order to get to the center. To the Ego.”

Dean wasn’t exactly on Freud’s level. He’d never even taken psychology in high school. But he understood the crucial points. “So, I have to fight through the archetypes to get to Sam.”

Bobby grinned. “‘Atta boy. Think of it as your own little Hero’s Journey. You’ve got to go through seven trials to rescue the princess from his ivory tower.”

All the times he’d called Sam a princess didn’t seem so funny now. He thought about it for a second and then he straightened up in his chair. “You’re an archetype.”

Amused, Bobby nodded. “Indeed I am.”

“I have to fight you as well.”

“Fight is a harsh word but… yes,” Bobby conceded.

“Why have you been helping me then?” 

“Don’t you know the stories, Dean?” Standing up, Bobby moved around to lean against the desk beside him. “The Sage is always the one who gets the Hero started on their journey. You may have to overcome me, but I’m the one who helps guide your way.”

Dean stood as well, uneasy with Bobby—no, the Sage—being on a higher ground than he was. “So, what’s your issue then?” he asked bluntly. “You said each archetype was tied up with an issue Sam had. What’s yours?”

“Oh no.” Bobby shook his head, and he seemed less like Bobby the more he spoke, although Dean couldn’t say why. “It’s not that easy. We have to have a conversation, Dean. You’ve got to talk to me. Be my armchair therapist.”

“I’d prefer to fight,” Dean mumbled and the old man cackled.

“No, you wouldn’t,” he said, grinning to show yellowing teeth. “You don’t want to fight what’s in the mind. Things in the mind can twist you in ways real things can’t. I’d have you broken within a second, and you need your strength for later. Not all the archetypes are as peaceful as I am.”

Dean swallowed, taking in the implied threat. He crossed his arms. “So talk then,” he commanded gruffly.

“There’s no rush,” the Sage said, “Not as long as you don’t waste the time you have.” Dean clenched his jaw, refusing to respond, and the man just took another swig of scotch. Or was it whiskey now? “You know, Sam really loved all this crap. Psychology, literature, archetypes… it all really fascinated him. He was going to be a lawyer, but he couldn’t deny that he felt a draw to this. In the end, it was all too mystical. Even going into the workings of the human mind was too close to the supernatural for him. That was why the decision to become a lawyer worked for him. It was sensible, practical.” Bobby sipped at his drink then chuckled to himself. “Besides, he liked to argue.”

“Liked?” Dean said before he could stop himself and Bobby laughed.

“True, true. The boy does have a tongue on him, doesn’t he?” Bobby winked, lewd, not something that the real Bobby would ever have done. “You ever thought about that?”

“What?” Dean asked, startled.

“Never mind.” The Old Man waved him off. “That’s for another archetype anyways.” He took another drink and seemed content not to say anymore.

“So Sam loves books. What’s new?” Dean prompted and Bobby coughed.

“Right right…” He sounded fainter than he had a few moments ago. Dean could swear that he was getting thinner as well. “You might say in some ways it’s the love of his life, learning. Always so curious, always wanting to learn more. Now, of course, all that is regulated to this.” Bobby thumped a hand down on the musty old book he’d been looking at and Dean glanced down at it. An old Bestiary, full of knowledge about what went bump in the night. “And that’s something but it eats him up. You’ll be working a case and you’ll go to some college kid’s dorm. He’ll see all the books and the papers and he wants that. He’s always wanted it. He’s so envious of them; they get to learn, get to grow, and he’s just sitting there, stagnant. The same man he was six years ago.”

Dean gaped at him for a second. “Are you telling me that Sam actually has a whole archetype devoted to the fact that he can’t be a geek full time anymore?”

Bobby turned to him, and his eyes were cold. “Knowledge is power, Dean. For Sam, knowledge is what makes him important. He’s okay at hunting, but the only times when he’s been really good at it are when he was hyped up on demon blood or soulless. That’s not the real him. He’s in for the books, the research. That’s all he’s good for. And even that is dwindling away. You won’t need him for it, soon enough.”

“Are you kidding me?” Dean laughed out loud. “Sam’s a great hunter. Not as good as me, sure, but otherwise? There’s no one better. And yeah, maybe he doesn’t do it for the thrill of it, like some people, but that’s a good thing. Sam does it, even though he doesn’t like it, because he wants to do the good thing, the right thing. And if you think I’m going to stop needing him anytime soon, you’re crazy. I couldn’t…” He remembered that long year with Lisa and swallowed. “He’s my partner. I’m at my best when I’m with him. You know that.” 

“Is that so?” Bobby said, and he was smiling again. Dean startled when he realized the desk had disappeared, along with everything on it. It was just him, the Sage, and the road. “You ought to tell him that more often,” the Old Man voiced, deep and firm, then began to walk away. Even though Dean would swear that he was walking just the same speed as always, he was putting distance between them abnormally fast.

“Hey!” Dean called after him. 

“Keep going,” Bobby said, and his voice was clear, even though he was becoming just a spot in the distance. “The Sage is only there for the start of your journey. You’ve got to go on your own now.”

Dean stared at the road in front of him, the highway leading directly to Sam. He took a step forward.

 

*

 

Sam’s mind reminded him of heaven a bit, with the road stretching forward toward the center. As Dean trod forward, cement solid under his boots, it was easy to draw up memories of going on morning runs with Sam along roads just like this one. He could imagine Sam at his side, still small and then progressively getting bigger, Dean’s hand-me-downs hanging off of him as he huffed out warm air and kept running.

Somehow, Dean was pretty sure that those weren’t the memories Sam’s mind was drawing on. As he’d experienced in heaven, Sam’s good memories didn’t involve him.

Still, Sam was scared of Dean not needing him, of being no longer useful or some shit (and wasn’t that a bizarre thought?). So maybe those memories weren’t as happy as heaven had made them seem. It was a place run by angels. It was definitely jacked up.

Time seemed kind of endless, and, in that way, Sam’s mind did remind him of hell. The feeling that one second was forever, that one minute was an eternity. He had to keep reminding himself he had time. He had time, as long as he didn’t waste it. And walking wasn’t wasting time. Walking was the only way he could reach the next archetype.

The house appeared out of nowhere. One minute the road was empty, and the next, there was a rickety building blocking his path. Dean blinked up at it, hoping it would change if he looked away for a moment. No such luck. The same sign remained, all splattered with neon green and black paint. “Mystery Spot,” he breathed and then— “Fuck.” 

At least he knew exactly what was waiting for him inside.

He opened the door to what was definitely a tourist trap. The spirals of neon color, everything else black. It was hideous. He didn’t remember it. He hadn’t really been here before, after all. Still, a shiver ran up his spine, as if his body remembered that bad things had happened here.

“Dean-o,” Gabriel said, and Dean spun around to find the angel right in front of him. “Surprised to see me again?”

“Just surprised Sam is masochistic enough to keep you in his head,” Dean replied and the angel laughed, just as condescending as ever.

“You crack me up, kid.” Gabriel swaggered over. “The Old Man gave you the low-down, right? You have the dance cards. Tell me: who am I?”

“The Trickster,” Dean hissed. “What else?”

“Good boy,” Gabriel said and leaned back against the wall. The whole inside of the place looked like a psychedelic nightmare. If this was what the Mystery Spot had actually looked like, then Dean was triply glad he hadn’t actually died there. “You know, for someone so bright, your brother’s mind can be surprisingly literal. I would’ve pegged him for something a little more inventive.”

“If Sam was inventive, I wouldn’t be living out some old psychologist’s wet dream,” Dean gritted out and Gabriel laughed.

“Your Hero’s Journey! Well, Sam does like the classics.” He smirked at Dean. “You know, you really shouldn’t be so hostile to me. The last time we met, I died for your cause. And I helped you figure out how to lock my brother back up in his cage. You ought to be grateful.”

“You aren’t real,” Dean growled, and the angel’s image wavered as he spoke. “You’re a figment of my brother’s imagination that he’s using to hurt himself. I don’t have any reason to treat you well.”

Gabriel tut-tutted, wagging his finger. “Now, now, that’s just discriminatory. Just because I’m not real, per-se, doesn’t mean you should treat me like a second class citizen.”

“Cut it with the games,” Dean commanded, and was surprised to find a wooden stake in his hand. “Or I’ll make you.”

The Trickster’s eyes went icy cold. “Didn’t the Sage tell you?” He was gone in a blur of movement and then there was a blinding flash of pain as Dean’s arm was wrenched over his head and out of its socket. “Don’t fight things that are in the mind, kiddo.”

“Then stop messing around and talk!” Dean yelled and was surprised to find himself released. 

He slumped backwards onto the floor with a deep breath, and opened his eyes to find the Trickster towering above him. The man grinned, and it wasn’t pretty. 

“Such a protective older brother,” the Trickster purred, sliding a hand down Dean’s cheek before he straightened up. Dean’s arm was a dull pain as he struggled to get into a sitting position. “Always taking such good care of Sammy. Even when he tricks you and lies to you and never tells you a thing. You’re so good to him, and what does he do to you? Leaves you for some demon bitch, drinks demon blood… Lies and lies and lies and lies and lies and—”

“I forgave him for that,” Dean blurted out, sharply. “I forgave him for all that shit, even before he apologized. Ruby—she manipulated him. It was her fault—”

“Was it really?” Gabriel tilted his head to the side in a movement that was too reminiscent of Cas. “What about when he lied to you about Stanford, about his powers? About the fact that Azazel had fed him demon blood as baby? Have you ever considered that it wasn’t Ruby, it was just Sam?” He paused for a second, as if waiting for an answer, but Dean couldn’t say anything past the nausea building up in his stomach. “Sam’s got demon blood after all. Maybe lying is all he’s good at.”

“No!” Dean said harshly, and struggled to his feet, one arm still hanging limply. He’d take care of that as soon as he finished with the mess in front of him. “No, Sam’s not—if anything, it’s this life that’s caused Sam to lie. He always feels like he has to hide things, because…” He swallowed and clenched his fists. “Dad was always lying to us, making us lie to everyone else. We had to cover up how we felt, even from each other sometimes. I think Sam just learned not to say things, and he’s always felt like he has to do that. That it’s not my burden to bear.”

“You think so?” Gabriel asked, and his voice was cool. “You think this all stems from Daddy issues as a kid and a pattern of continuing behavior?”

In reality, Dean didn’t quite know. Even in the depths of Sam’s mind, he didn’t really understand his brother any better than before. But there was only one way to answer, so he nodded. “Yes. I do.” 

“Interesting…” And then the mystery spot was gone and they were standing on the road again, the light of the silver fog making Dean blink wildly. Gabriel grinned and began to shimmer, getting brighter and brighter until Dean couldn’t look at him. “Guess you’ll have fun with the next archetype then.”

When Dean looked again, the Trickster was gone. It was if he had never been there at all.

Dean popped his arm back in its socket, biting around the dull pain as he did something Sam had done for him a million times over. And he kept walking.

 

*

 

Dean knew what was coming. And he wasn’t looking forward to it one bit.

His leather jacket hung around him as he walked. Still too big, he felt like it was going to swallow him up. When he saw dust on the horizon, he stopped walking.

The truck roared up to him and everything in him burned red-hot as a face appeared in the driver’s seat. He stood stock-still as the car slammed to a halt in front of him and the driver’s door opened with a clang of metal. 

“Dean!” One word in that voice, and every inch of Dean wanted to jump to attention. “Dean!” The man said again, and there he was in front of him, in his full glory. John stared him down, harsh and disapproving. “Dean, what are you doing here?”

“Hi, Dad,” Dean said, shoving his hands in his pockets so that they wouldn’t tremble. “I’d say it’s good to see you, but I was actually hoping not to.”

John sighed, rubbing a hand over his beard. “Come on, Dean, you knew better. You’re the one that told the Trickster Sam had Daddy issues.” He spread his arms wide. “Who better than me to play the role of the Father?”

“I think I might’ve preferred the demon,” Dean muttered, and at the very mention of Azazel, John looked like he might rip his throat out.

“It’s all about Sam, Dean,” he said stiffly. “Would you really be happier if he considered that his Father?”

Put that way… Dean shook his head. “No. I was just hoping.”

“Sam turns everything into a weapon,” John said, leaning back against his truck. He looked deceptively relaxed, but Dean knew he could be in motion with just a few seconds warning. “You gotta understand that, Dean. Every word, every moment, is all just shattered glass for him to cut himself on. Even the happy things.”

Dean let his eyes fall closed for a moment as he took a deep breath. “I wish I could say you were wrong.” But they both knew he wasn’t.

John looked at him, and Dean felt like he was eight again and had just left Sam alone, the full weight of his father’s judgment upon him. “Do you really think you can do it, Dean?” he asked.

“Do what?”

“Fix Humpty Dumpty.” John gestured at the space around them, the grey fog congealing and spinning into new shapes. Sometimes, Dean thought he saw something familiar in the mist, a face, a sign. But then it was swept away again. “Get through each archetype, find the Ego, and fix him. You think you can do that?”

“It’s Sam,” Dean said, without really thinking about it. And even though that wasn’t really an answer, it felt like it was.

“It is Sam,” John affirmed, “which is why I asked.” He held up his hands. “I’m not saying you can’t do it. Just that… It’s Sam. Is he really worth it?

“What are you saying?” Dean growled. In all the years that John and Sam had fought, never had his father ever said anything like this. Never had he implied that Sam was lesser, unimportant. The exact opposite, actually. Sure, they had feuded through the years, but Dean had never doubted that his father loved Sam as much as he could.

“Look at him. Look at this.” John flung his arms out. “A year in the Cage and he’s so feeble that Death has to put a wall up in his mind to keep him together. And then all it takes is a nudge from Cas to bring it down. If he was stronger, maybe he could’ve held up. But I’ll tell you a secret, Dean.” John leaned in closer, conspiratorial. “He didn’t fight it. Not any of it. He wanted to break. He’s that weak. He was so tired, too tired to continue on, so he just let himself shatter.”

“It was a year in hell!” Dean shouted, and his voice echoed eerily in the empty space. “Not just in hell, in the Cage. You have no idea what that’s like, no idea—”

“Don’t I?” John raised his eyebrows. “I was in hell for a year too, you know. And I didn’t break. I never said yes. I held on. But Sam... how long do you think it took him to break, give in, and just become Lucifer’s little fucktoy? A day? Two?”

“Shut up,” Dean said. He was trembling, shaking with anger. “You shut up right now, or I swear to god, I will—”

“I mean, we had evidence before that of how pathetic he was,” John continued, almost gleeful, circling Dean like a vulture. “Thought he could make it on his own without us, and how did he do? He got his girlfriend killed, allowed himself to be manipulated by that demon bitch, Azazel as well, for that matter. For Christ’s Sake, Dean, he got himself killed. Just turned around and let himself get stabbed in the back. He would’ve been shark meat if you hadn’t been gracious enough to sell your soul for him—”

Dean balled his hands into fists and tried to tune it all out, but he could still hear his Father, waxing on in a gravelly voice. “And even before that—all the demon’s other children, they figured out how to use their powers without demon blood. But not Sam. He needed the feather to fly. He was too frightened, too scared, to embrace the power he could have had, to take control. If he had… Can you imagine? If he’d taken control of his visions, I might not have died. You might not have died. He might’ve seen this whole thing coming and been able to stop it. But no. He was such a coward—”

“You’re wrong,” Dean snarled, and he didn’t make the mistake of lashing out physically this time. “Sam is the bravest person I know—the kid jumped into the pit for me, for all of us. And he didn’t look back. He took on the devil, knowing what he’d have to do and he… he didn’t even blink. I couldn’t have. I don’t know if I could have done that.”

“Didn’t blink?” John laughed, loud and dark. “What, you aren’t counting all the time that he let Lucifer take the wheel and control him, kill people? What was that, if not hesitating?”

“He took back control. He took back control from Lucifer himself—You couldn’t have done it, I couldn’t have done it. But he did. He took back control and he made himself jump. And if that’s not fucking strong, I don’t know what is.” Dean stared his father down. “All those things you listed, that’s not being weak. Sam tries. He always tries so hard. And people take advantage of that. But it’s not his fault for trying.”

John smiled, tight and angry. “He doesn’t believe you, you know. Not completely. You’ve done enough to pass me. But you need to think on it. Because everything’s just going to get harder from now on and you can’t half-ass it.”

“I’m not half-assing anything,” Dean spat, and he didn’t think he’d ever wanted to hit someone more. “Now get out of my way so I can go.”

“Clean up your language,” John said, as he hopped into the truck. “You better not talk like that to the next one. She won’t stand for it.”

He revved the engine, and Dean cursed and jumped out of the way as the truck leapt into motion, rattling down the road until it was out of sight.

“And fuck you too,” he muttered, before jogging forward. He might not be wasting time, but he couldn’t help the thought that it might be running out.

 

*

 

For the first time since he’d entered Sam’s mind, he heard the faint sound of music. Previously, it had been quiet, near silent, just the roiling fog. It made sense. Music was Dean’s language. Sam believed in words.

Even the song was cold and faint. No voice sang along, just a slow pinging of sound like an old music box. In fact, Dean was pretty sure he knew the song.

“Hey Jude,” he murmured, half surprised. Then he realized exactly what that song meant. “And I thought Dad was bad.” He couldn’t help speaking aloud to himself, even though his voice just echoed in the silence. 

Everything was just too quiet. Nothing but an old song on the wind.

The tree was the first sign. Looming big and twisted over everything, it came into sight first. For a few seconds, Dean couldn’t move his feet forward. He remembered that tree, all lit up in red and gold while his life burned to the ground.

As if he had summoned it with just his thoughts, the house appeared just behind the tree. The walls were still faded blue, the roof still dusted brown. And the music box was joined by a haunted humming, floating out through an open window on the second floor.

“Really, Sammy?” Dean groaned, but he forced himself to put one foot in front of the other and walk past the tree, up to the front door, and inside the house.

Other than being spotlessly clean, his childhood home was just as he remembered it. There was their old couch with the threadbare pillows; there was his mom’s cookbook, passed down from her mother. A picture of the four of them sat on the fireplace mantle, but there was something odd about it. Dean moved closer, picking it up, and saw baby Sam’s face had been scratched over with black ink.

Dean wasn’t sure who this was hurting more. Him or his brother.

The walk up to Sam’s nursery was too short. Each time Dean took a step, it echoed throughout the house, a pounding rhythm to the too-smooth melody. Taking in a deep breath, he gave a gentle push to the door. It swung open as soon as he touched his fingers to the wood.

“Mom,” he whispered, and she straightened up with a warm smile. Her blonde hair fell freely over her shoulders. She was still young, flushed with life, like she always would be. “Mom. What are you doing here?”

Mary stepped closer, bringing a hand up to run along his cheek. “Hey, baby,” she said. “Look at you. You’ve grown.”

He couldn’t help leaning into the softness of her hand. “Yeah. I have.” The music had died away. It was just him, his mother, and a white room full of boxes. “What are you doing, Mom?”

“Oh!” She glanced over her shoulder as if she was surprised by all the boxes as well. Then she turned back to him with a small smile, but it seemed broken now, twisted. “Just packing. You know.”

Even as she was saying the words, she was moving, stuffing baby clothes and knick-knacks into boxes with no particular order. Dean took a step further inside, and could see her hands shaking. “Why are you packing Sam’s room, Mom?”

“Don’t!” she screamed, sudden and shrill in the quiet. “We don’t say his name,” she chided more softly, like it was a reminder. “We don’t… I don’t want to talk about him.”

Her lower lip was trembling as she knelt on the floor, packing frantically. Dean knelt beside her, carefully taking one of her hands in his. “Why don’t you want to talk about Sam? I don’t understand. We have to talk about him to…” She was just an archetype, he reminded himself, the worst one for him, probably. The Mother. “I need to keep moving on, Mom. We need to talk about Sam.”

“No,” she said again, and she was crying now, big, fat tears streaming down her cheeks. “No, I don’t want to talk about that—that—thing! That abomination!” She turned to cling to Dean’s shoulders, hands like claws. Her words tumbled out of her mouth to quickly, fragmented into sharp spikes of fury. “I can’t believe I even… I gave birth to that. I let that into the world… How could I not have seen…? It was right there, I should have seen it…” She brought her hands up to her face, nails digging into the soft skin. “That ugly, miserable thing. I should’ve bashed his head in the second I got him out of me!”

“Mom!” Grabbing her hands by the wrists, he pulled them away from her face desperately. “Mom, what are you saying? How could you say that about—” He swallowed. That was disgust on her face, horror at the very idea of Sam. “It’s Sam, Mom,” he said lowly, pleadingly. “Your son. You love him, remember?”

“How could I?” She screeched, wrenching herself out of his reach so she could stand. She scrabbled at the bedding in the crib, finally screaming out in frustration and ripping it off, tearing it to shreds. “How could I love that? How could anyone? Causes pain and evil everywhere he goes—he was the host for Lucifer, Dean, how can you think anyone would ever love him? Especially not—” She shuddered, shaking wracking her whole body. “Not with all those desires, so sick and wrong—”

“Mom, please, please—” Dean tried to pacify her, tried to stop her, but she was uncontrollable. She began tossing the boxes out the window, one after another. There went Sammy’s favorite stuffed bear. Dean remembered teasing him with it, rubbing it against his belly until Sam giggled, tiny little baby hands waving in the air. He brought a hand up to his throat, as if he could actually touch the lump there and smooth it away. 

Slowly, he straightened his back, staring at his mother’s shaking back. “You think no one can love him. He thinks no one can love him.”

She pivoted to face him, face twisted in despair. “Of course not. You’ve seen him. How could anyone—” She shook her head. “No one could be capable of loving that.”

“What does that make me then?” Swallowing, Dean clenched his jaw. “I… I love that kid more than anyone else on this planet. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for him. I died for him. I went to hell for him, and god, I went happily, because all I cared about was that he’d be okay and—” Dean rubbed angrily at the tears burning in his eyes. He cleared his throat and gestured brusquely. “I love him. So you’re wrong.”

“Oh sweetheart…” Mary came up to him again, and there was a look of utter pity on her face. “You think that now. You won’t soon enough. And I’m sorry for that. I wish that…” She smiled bleakly and the house disappeared around them. They were back on the road. “I don’t think you’ll make it much further,” she told him and then leaned forward to kiss his forehead.

He closed his eyes and when he opened them again, she was gone.

 

*

 

Dean wasn’t quite sure he’d be able to manage if the last three archetypes were any worse. The Trickster and the Sage, he could’ve dealt with more like that. But his Mom and Dad? That was a little too close to home.

But considering how entwined his life and Sam’s were, chances were these archetypes would hurt him just as much as they hurt Sam.

It wasn’t even really the archetypes that were hurting him, so much as the fact that Sam thought he was unloveable, weak, unwanted. A liar, a coward, and evil, and for god’s sake, what was Dean doing wrong if Sam thought that? Why hadn’t he given Sam more reassurance, more consideration, just… more. 

Dean trudged down the road, muttering to himself. Dean wasn’t really one for the care-and-share, but if had Sam needed it, he would’ve. Didn’t Sam get that? That if Sam needed something, he’d do anything, anything. Didn’t Sam see that?

“Sam has problems seeing those types of things. I told him a few times he needed to get glasses.” 

The voice came out of nowhere and Dean startled backwards, almost falling on his ass. Right in front of him there was a bed; it was all white, white sheets, white pillows, white wood. And perched on the edge of the bed, there was a woman dressed in white as well, with gold hair tumbling down around her shoulders. She was paler than she had been in life.

“Hi, Dean,” Jess said softly. There was no pink in her cheeks. “Do you know who I am?”

He knew what she was asking instantly. And he scoured his mind for the archetype. It eluded him and then— 

He was back in his senior English class again, at that stupid liberal arts high school, and they hadn’t stopped discussing Hamlet. He tuned in only to hear the teacher ask, "Why is Ophelia the most dangerous person in the story?" 

Most of the students looked at each other in confusion, but a girl in the back raised her hand, tall and strong.

"Because without her father, without her brother, Ophelia becomes completely ungrounded.  She is completely sheltered, innocent, and her family has been what makes her real.  Without them… She's just a figment."

Dean looked at Jess, her pale face, her white dress, and a figment was all he saw.

"The Maiden," he said through a dry throat.  "The innocent."

She smiled. “Good job, Dean. You’re right.” One pale, cold hand came out to pat the bed beside her. “Sit with me.”

Gingerly, Dean took the spot beside her. He remembered Jess being strong, healthy, but the girl beside him was as thin as a wraith. “Are you okay?” he asked.

“I’m dead,” she answered, just as calmly. “I don’t know how I am.” She turned to face him, eyes big and wide in her face. “I’m just a figment of Sam’s imagination after all.”

“You know that?” Dean raised his eyebrows. The past archetypes—well, the Trickster and the Sage had known in there way, but it wasn’t quite the same. “So you’re going to tell me Sam’s problem so I can try to fix it and we can move on? No fuss?”

“Problem?” She looked at him, surprised. “You think these are…” Shaking her head, she trailed off and looked down at the hands in her lap. “You don’t understand the severity of this, I think.”

He felt something still inside him, quiet. He’d been waiting for this. “Severity. How bad is it? At the end of the road.”

“At the end,” she repeated tonelessly then jerked her head to the side. “You don’t get it. The end is the ego. The ego is the end. It’s just Sam that you’ll find there. Bruised and broken, sure, but Sam. It’s the path that…” She paused, drawing in a deep breath. “You are walking along the road of Sam’s personal hell.” When Dean jerked back at that, she laughed under her breath, dry as stones. “Everything we said, everything you’ve heard, these are his darkest fears, the things that hurt him the most. Things that were drummed into him.” She looked at him solemnly. “Lucifer didn’t have to use weapons to torture our Sam. Just words.”

“Oh.” Dean felt sick. He was going to be sick. “You’re saying…”

Jess shrugged, and Dean could see her bones. “Brainwashing. Basically. If you’re told something over and over again, it becomes true to you. This—” She gestured all around them, “—these are Sam’s truest truths.”

“So what ‘truth’ are you?” When Jess just looked at him blankly, he resisted the urge to shake her to pieces. “If this is what my brother truly believes, above everything else, then I need to get through it. I need to prove to him that he’s worth something, that—”

“He dirties everything he touches, you know.”

His head jerked to the side and he stared at her as she traced one long finger along her leg. He swallowed. His throat was dry. “What did you say?”

Jess hummed one low note. “He dirties things. Everything that comes close to him. He twists them. He wrecks them.” She paused, thoughtful, and then said, “He met this girl during Azazel’s game. Everything she touched died. And he thought he was a lot like that. Except he doesn’t always kill things. He just forces them to live on. Ruined.” She forced out a small laugh. “Except me. He ruined me slowly. And then he killed me.” She looked at him and her eyes were blank. “He’ll kill you too, you know. Oh wait.” Jess smiled, all teeth. “He already has.”

“That wasn’t Sam’s fault,” Dean said firmly. “And you weren’t either. I made my own decision, and what happened to you was because of the demon, not Sam. Sam wouldn’t have ever come with me if he knew what might happen.”

Her shoulders lifted in another weary shrug. “Maybe so. But still.” She listed to the side, as if the light breeze was too much for her. “Did you know I already had a boyfriend when I met Sam?”

“No,” he said, and she didn’t look surprised.

“I suppose you wouldn’t.” Her eyes drifted over him, and then her lips twitched up into a self-deprecating smirk. “He talked about you a lot, you know. Always ‘my brother’ this and ‘my brother’ that. Not when he was sober of course.” She laughed and it sounded like someone had punched her in the stomach. “Only when he was drunk. That’s when I got to hear about the great Dean, and every time it made me cry.” She wasn’t crying then, but Dean thought that might be easier to bear than the mournful desperation on her face. “I could never match up to you.”

Now, that he knew wasn’t true. “It’s the opposite way around,” he told her and she shook her head vehemently.

“You think that now, because I’m gone. And he grieved, sure. He loved me, as much as he could. But—” She pursed her lips, and Dean noticed for the first time that there was a bluish tint to them. He wasn’t sitting next to a real girl. He was sitting next to a Maiden’s corpse. “The first time I met Sam, we were talking about the incest taboo in Anthro 101. And he made it sound… Well, everyone normally has just one reaction to the idea of incest. That it’s disturbing, horrific. He said, ‘Why do we have such an issue with two people potentially being happy in a consensual relationship?’ My boyfriend at the time brought up genetic mutation and such, to which Sam said, ‘Did you know that within ten generations of continual incest of the worst variety, the rise in the percentage of birth defects would be less than one percent?’ He paused, to let that sink in with all of us, and then he said, ‘People don’t like the idea of being intimate with those closest to you. We talk about lovers that know everything about us, but in principle, we don’t find that so appealing. We always want our lovers to only see the best of us, we want to be able to hide from them. You can’t do that with family’.” 

There was a fervor in Jess’s words and for the first time she seemed alive. And then she stopped speaking and laughed again, like rattling bones. “It’s true. What he said. We don’t want people to really see us. So we give parts of ourselves to select people, but not all of us to one person. That’s too dangerous, too much of us for one person to handle. But Sam.” Her eyes were distant now, caught in the past. “Sam wasn’t like that. He wanted one person to have all of him.” Her voice lowered to a dry rasp. “I just wasn’t that person.”

“I don’t see how—”

“Don’t you?” Her eyes were sharp as she spun to look at him. “Don’t be naive, Dean. There’s a reason we all have that fear. Carrying the weight of knowing everything about someone else, and that person knowing all of you, it sounds beautiful, in concept. But too much and it… it twists you. That’s what Sam does with every little piece he gives away. You twist up around it, like your body is trying to fight it, rid you of the infection. But you aren’t strong enough, so it settles in, becomes a scar, inflamed.” Her smile was cold. “You know what I’m talking about.”

Sam was sixteen. Sam was drunk. Sam clung to his shoulders desperately, clawing at his skin with tears in his eyes. 

“Please Dean, something’s wrong with me.” His lips sucked at Dean’s neck harshly. “I shouldn’t feel this way. There’s something wrong with me. You have to make it go away.”

Dean pushed him away with trembling arms. “You’re just drunk. And confused. You don’t really—you’ll see in the morning. You won’t feel this way then.”   
He moved to walk away, lock himself in the bathroom, but Sam shouted after him. “I will! I will, because there’s something wrong in me. I want to climb into your arms and hold on, I want to sew myself onto you. I—I love you, Dean, and I want you, and please—”

Dean slammed the bathroom door shut behind him. But he could still hear Sam crying.

He had to clear his throat. It was hard to speak. “That didn’t twist me.”

Jess raised one eyebrow. “Didn’t it?”

And sure, for the next two years, every time he had looked at Sam, that was all he had seen. His younger brother craning to touch their mouths together, desperate for just one kiss. And if he had drank more to deal with the guilt, if he had stopped staying home with Sammy and went on other hunts instead… Well, he’d needed time to cope. But it hadn’t twisted him.

“Maybe so,” she repeated. For a moment, Dean imagined her as a wind-up doll, repeating the same cold statements over and over again until someone smashed her on the floor. “But it will. You think that was bad, you think that hurt you. This, all of this—” She gestured to the road, the bed, the whistling wind. “This is Sam. He’s unloading this burden on you, and every day for the rest of your life, you will have to carry this on your shoulders. That isn’t going to warp you?”

‘No’ wasn’t a good enough answer. Dean didn’t believe it himself. Of course it would warp him, but… “Is that a bad thing?” he asked.

Her eyebrows shot up and she looked truly interested in what he said for the first time. “Of course.”

He shook his head. “I don’t think so. I think…” Taking a deep breath, he stared down at his hands as he fidgeted, twirling his ring on his finger absentmindedly. “Earlier, you were talking about someone knowing everything about you, putting everything on someone. And sure, that’s what Sam’s doing to me, but I chose to take this on. And I...” His intake of breath this time was more of a gasp. “That’s what I want to do right back. I want Sam to know everything about me, I want him to.” He swallowed. “Sure, I wish he could always think the best of me, but… he said he wanted to sew us together.” He unclenched his fists. “I want that too.”

His words seemed to ring in the empty space. He closed his eyes, as if that could stop him from hearing it.

Then he felt something cool against his lips and he opened his eyes only to find Jess a few inches away from him. “Thank you,” she said, and her smile was one of the most beautiful things he’d ever seen. “I never thought…” She trailed off, as if the words were too much to say. “Thank you.”

And he was standing alone on the empty road once again.

 

*

 

“And then there were two,” he murmured to himself as he walked, going over the last remaining archetypes in his head. 

The Child and the Hero.

It seemed to him that most of the significant figures in their lives had already played out. Bobby, Mary, John, Jess… He couldn’t think of anyone with a bigger impact on their collective life than those. Unless there’d been someone else at Stanford he didn’t know about.

“No,” he said out loud to himself— 

—And a voice echoed back, “No?”

This time there was no additional furniture, no buildings. Just the road, him, and a little blonde girl dressed in a lacy pink dress. Not Lilith, thank god, although he’d flinched the first second he saw her. No, just a normal child, with flushed cheeks and uneven pigtails. She beamed when she saw him. 

“Who’re you?” he asked, crouching down so they were at eye level with each other. 

The girl was rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet, like she was nervous. “Well, I’m not—” She paused, tilting her head to the side as if she was confused. “I’m just not quite real, you see. Not that—” She huffed again, frustrated, and Dean had a moment to realize how eerie it was, hearing adult language coming from a toddler. “It’s not like any of us are real, per se, but I’m less real than the rest. Do you understand?”

Leaning back, Dean shook his head slowly. “Not really.” Licking his lips—they were suddenly dried and cracked—he tried, “You’re the Child, right?”

She shrugged, tiny shoulders with bird-like bones. “The Child. I guess. I’m never quite sure what I am. He changes his mind sometimes. Sometimes I’m a girl, sometimes I’m a boy.” She ran a twig-like hand over her face. “I look like her today. That only happens when he’s really sad.”

With a sharp breath, Dean took in everything from her plump cheeks to her long, skinny legs. “You’re Sam’s,” he said, “Sam’s kid with Jess.”

Smoothing down her skirt, the girl looked at the ground. “Yes. They wanted kids, you know. A boy and a girl, in a house with a picket fence and a porch with an old rocking chair. Do you think he could’ve had it?”

Dean had to take a few seconds before he could respond, reaching out to rest his hand on this girl’s—his niece’s—shoulder. “No. I don’t think so.”

She nodded solemnly, not arguing. “No. I guess Sam was always destined for other things.” She squirmed under his hand. “Dean?”

“Yeah?”

“What do you think about destiny?”

Frowning, Dean brought his hand down to her chin, nudging her face upwards so he could see the expression on her face. Her brows were swept together, her lips raw from biting. “Why are you asking?”

“Well, it’s just…” Her hands flopped uselessly at her side as she failed to express what she wanted with him. She made an angry noise of exasperation and grabbed onto his arm, pulling him in closer. “See, I wasn’t Sam’s destiny. I wasn’t. He had a destiny, a great one, preordained by heaven even! And then he just threw it away, didn’t he? He was supposed to be the host to Lucifer, he was supposed to battle against Michael and decide the fate of the apocalypse, but instead…” 

Her breath was coming faster and faster, in little puffs across his knuckles. “You—the Winchesters—you always live by bending and breaking rules. You always think you can get away with it. But that was just ordinary human stuff. Averting the apocalypse was disobeying God’s will. He ruined his destiny, and now look what’s happened. Look at Cas, look at Sam, look at you! It’s all destroyed, and it’s all Sam’s fault!” Her little body was shaking with suppressed sobs. “It’s all our fault, Dean. How are we supposed to keep going, if—you should just leave us here. This is better than whatever’s out there.”

Carefully, Dean drew her into his arms. He let her cry herself out on his shoulder, remembering when Sammy had thrown fits in his arms and cried similar frustrated, angry tears. It was only when her sobbing had subsided that he eased her back enough so that he could look into her slanted green eyes.

“What do you think about God, kiddo?” he asked.

She sniffled a bit in reply, face still drawn into a somber, petulant expression. “I don’t know. Why?”

He adjusted his hold on her, letting her stand between his legs. “Do you think he’s powerful?”

Warily, she nodded. “Yes.”

“Really powerful, right?” He tried out a faint grin as he stretched out his arms. “Caused floods, created the world, created destiny, even. Dude’s got a lot of juice, yeah?”

“Yes,” she said with slightly more confidence.

“Well then,” he said, and smiled. “Don’t you think he’d have enough power to have forced us to make the apocalypse happen if he wanted to?”

There was a pause as the girl’s brows wrinkled even further. “I suppose so…”

He took her hands back between his and let his smile fade away. “Look, you know that I don’t think much of the guy. God, whoever he is, sucks balls as far as I’m concerned. The fact that he decided it wasn’t Sam’s destiny to have you makes me crazy angry. But I’ll say this for the guy: he let us have that loop-hole and didn’t do anything to stop us. Didn’t make it any easier either, but…” Dean shrugged, out of words. “Anything that’s happened, it’s not Sam’s fault for averting the god damn apocalypse. That’s the greatest thing he’s ever done, the bravest.” He swallowed down the part of him that just didn’t say stuff like this and said, “I’ve never been prouder.”

The girl sniffled a little, blinking back the remaining tears. “You really mean that?” she asked, and for the first time she sounded like the child she was supposed to be.

“Yeah, I do.”

She smiled up at him suddenly, big and wide. Sam used to grin like that, back when he was just a toddler and Dean gave him an extra piece of candy after dinner. She threw her arms around him, shocking him slightly with the force of her embrace. Carefully, he wrapped his arms around her in turn, feeling the fragility of her small body.

Dimples still in full force, she pulled back. “Thank you,” she said sincerely, and then she sobered. “I’ll walk you to the next one. He might be nicer if…” She shook her head, biting at her lip and glanced towards the empty road in front of them. “You don’t mind if I stay with you, right?”

“Not at all.” Dean stood up and didn’t jerk away when her tiny hand slipped into his. “Straight ahead?”

“Yes.” Her voice was softer now, and she almost looked less real, as if she was already fading away. “He shouldn’t be far. He likes to stay close to me. He looks out for me.”

The Hero would protect the Child, Dean thought. It was a pity he was going to probably have a throw-down with the guy. 

So far, the archetypes had followed a trend. The men had been first; the weaknesses of Sam’s he’d faced there had been closer to the surface, easier to dispel. The women that had come afterwards had been darker, deeper. Between his mother, Jess, and the child in front of him, Dean wasn’t sure he would’ve been able to take another woman.

But this last archetype… the girl had said ‘he’. The archetypes had gone in order of difficulty. So this last one, this man, would be the hardest yet.

The girl squeezed his hand, surprisingly strong. “Almost there,” she whispered, and Dean saw a black speck on the horizon. It grew larger faster than it would in real life. It only took him six more steps to see it, and the figure leaning against it, clearly.

“Fuck,” he whispered.

The Impala seemed bigger than life in Sam’s mind. Gleaming, with the engine running a steady purr, it looked more like the batmobile than a car that had suffered through crashes and fights and two small children. Normally, Dean would’ve had a difficult time resisting the urge to move closer and stroke its hood. But he was frozen under the stare of the last archetype.

“The Hero,” the man leaning against the Impala said, voice rough but clear. “Come on, Dean. You couldn’t have expected anybody else.”

Wordlessly, Dean shook his head. The little girl moved to stand in front of him, almost defensive. “Don’t be mean. He’s really trying—”

The man looked down at her, face softening with affection. “I know you think he is. But it’s my job to look after Sammy, and you too. I’ll take care of this.”

“But—!” the girl protested and the man’s face firmed up.

“Go,” he said, and in a flicker, she was gone.

“So,” the man said, and Dean stared at his own face looking back at him. “Looks like it’s just the two of us now.”

“Me,” Dean said and shook his head again, vehemently. “I’m who Sam chose as the Hero. He’s definitely whacked. I’m not—” He laughed humorlessly. “So I’m the face of his darkest archetype. Wow.”

“Consider it a mark of honor,” the other Dean said, hands tucked into the pockets of John’s old leather jacket. “People’s biggest fears normally connect with the people they love the most. So, you know, at least the kid loves you.”

“Not more than Jess,” Dean said stubbornly, and the other him laughed.

“Seriously? You’re saying that even after what Jess already told you?” He quirked an eyebrow upwards. “Kid’s been in love with you for years. He wants to fuck you.” Something darkened in his face and he leaned forward, eyes glinting as they ran over Dean’s body. When Dean instinctively flinched backwards, the archetype laughed and relaxed once more. “So yeah. Ahead of Jess.”

There was nothing Dean could say to that. He swallowed, trying not to think about what that meant. He’d always been able to depend on the fact that he loved Sam more than Sam loved him. But if everything he’d seen was true… Fuck, he’d been so careless.

Biting down on the inside of his mouth, he squared his shoulders. “Alright then. I need to get to Sam. If you’re me, you don’t want to waste time either. Not when Sam’s at stake. So why don’t you just tell me what your issue is so I can deal with it and move on?”

The alternate version of him snorted, but leaned back against the Impala’s driver’s side door. “Alright then. You want me to give it to you straight, I’ll give it to you straight. But you already know. I mean, you’ve always known. What’s Sam’s biggest fear?”

Dean opened his mouth to answer, but the archetype cut him off, holding up a hand. “I’ll give you a hint. It’s pretty closely related to your biggest fear.”

“There’s no way.” Dean crossed his arms, then shifted so they were in his jean pockets again, uncomfortable even thinking about his own fears. “My biggest fear is losing him, there’s no way—”

“Bam!” The Hero clapped nice and slow, a nasty grin on his face. “Hit the nail on the head. Losing you, failing you, having you leave him, you hating him, the kid’s got a weak spot a mile long, shaped like you.”

“There’s no way—” Dean repeated, but the archetype cut him off with an angry gesture of his hands.

He held his arms wide, looking like some kind of backroads avenger, a vigilante, the dark antihero as clouds began to roll across the sky. “I’m the culmination of this whole thing, baby. Every little fear you’ve seen along the way, every time you’ve dug deeper, I’ve always been what’s waiting at the end. And I’ll tell you what.” He leaned in closer, smile wide and malicious. “Your biggest fear? Yeah, losing Sam is up there, but it’s got one right in front of it, something you’d never even look at. Your biggest fear is that Sam loves you just as much as you love him.” He pulled his arms in, rocking back on his heels with a laugh. “That’s the scariest idea in the whole world to you, that Sam is just as fucked up over you, as you are over him. If it was just you, you could ignore it, repress it. But if Sam…” He let his words trail off and grinned again. “And the kicker of it all? There’s no way you can face me if you don’t accept that it’s true.”

Dean had talked to another version of himself before. That version had been black-eyed and cruel, and it had also spoken the truth. As much as he could repress and deny, he couldn’t lie to himself, not when the truth was laid out so plainly before him. “God,” he whispered, and resisted the urge to start running or punching. There was no way. If Sam felt the same way, if Sam felt the same scary, all-consuming thing he did, then it wasn’t just because he was sick, fucked in the head. What Sam had felt was lust and loneliness, sure, but it couldn’t have been what Dean had felt. If he’d felt the way Dean had felt for years and years and years and years—

“There’s no way,” Dean said for a third time, and powered through when the archetype opened his mouth to object. “Sam can’t be worried about that. He’s got to know. You know. If you how I feel, then Sam’s got to. And if he did, he’d never worry about any of that.”

“You do,” the Hero pointed out, rolling his eyes. “You guys have spent so much time hiding from each other, hiding everything because you’re afraid. You can’t expect Sam to see things you barely admit to yourself, Dean.”

“Then what the fuck am I supposed to do?” Running his hands through his hair, he paced in a tight, tiny line. “If he doesn’t see it, how the fuck am I supposed to convince him? What has the rest of this been? All of this, all this traveling in his head, and talking, and—what the fuck does he think that is? If that doesn’t prove that I… I don’t know what else could.”

There was the faint sound of footsteps as the other him moved closer. “That you, what?” he said in a gentle voice. 

“Who are you, Sam?” Dean snapped. “I’m not going to spill my heart out—”

“But I am part of Sam,” the archetype said, fierce and stern. “I am Sam. And you know what he needs. You know what he needs to hear.” He paused and sighed. When he spoke again, his voice was weary and disappointed. “But if you are too chicken-shit to save him, then I guess—”

“What do you want me to say?” Dean hissed, spinning around grabbing onto that leather jacket, shaking the other man. “That I love the shit out of him? That he’s my whole world? That I lived in a fog the whole time he was at Stanford and jumped at the first chance to get him back? That I don’t actually want him to go with any of those girls I shove at him in bars? That I wish… That shit’s not—I don’t do this. I don’t give big speeches, or talk about my feelings, but this whole road, that’s what I’ve been doing, because—god damn it—I wouldn’t last two seconds without Sam, not again. I couldn’t… I can’t fucking do anything without him. I’m useless without him.”

He slumped over, panting, and suddenly, large hands came up to grasp his shoulders. “Dean?” 

Dean’s head shot up, and instead of himself, Sam was standing there, baffled and confused, with tears running down his cheeks. “Dean? You came?”

Dean took a few seconds to just stare, to take in his brother, every perfect piece. Those were the eyes of the little kid read stories to at night. Those were the cheekbones that had emerged when Sam finally grew out of his baby fat. Those were the hands of the brother he’d fought beside for the past years. “Yeah,” he finally said, voice dry and hoarse. “Yeah. I came.”

Sam’s face crumpled and then he was clinging to Dean, just like he was a little kid again. “I didn’t think you would,” he whispered into Dean’s neck.

“Yeah, well.” Dean adjusted his grip, pulling Sam tighter, like he could actually tie them together, sew them up. “I did.”

 

*

Dean let the Impala roar down the road. They were taking some time off after they’d managed to keep Purgatory closed. There was a concert in Texas they wanted to go to, a game in Boston. A restaurant Dean wanted to revisit in Nebraska. Sam wanted to visit some antique book store in Connecticut. Bobby and Cas were on strict instructions to only contact them in the case of an emergency.

Dean felt relaxed for the first time in years, driving down the road with the windows down, his music blaring, and his brother’s hand on his knee.

Skin warmed by Sam’s touch, Dean turned to look at his brother. Sam’s hair was blowing lightly in the wind, and he had a small smile on his face. Even with the wall down, Sam hadn’t suffered from anything except a couple of nightmares. Cas said it was a miracle.

Dean didn’t believe in miracles.

Sam turned to look at him and his smile curved wider, dimples popping out. “Hey,” he said.

Dean smiled back. “Hey.”

Later, they’d kiss for the first time. There’d be some fumbling under the covers, awkward and clumsy, but better than anything Dean’d ever had before. He would still refuse to have chick-flick moments, and Sam would still try to force them on him. They’d learn how to have fun sex, angry sex, quick sex. And even something slower, that Dean refused to give a name to. Sam liked to call it ‘making love’, but that was because he was still a girl.

There’d still be monsters, but it would be slightly easier to keep the weight off his shoulders and the smile on his face.

In the meantime? They kept driving.


End file.
